Fes and Volubilis

I spent a long time in Marrakech and its surroundings. Today, Saturday, I’m taking the train to the old royal city of Fes. First class, but that doesn’t mean much except that you have a reserved seat. The old train is on time, but unfortunately, there is no power. I don’t have much to do, so I either look at the increasingly greener landscape or play on my Gameboy clone. We pass by Casablanca and Rabat. Everyone I’ve met, travelers and locals alike, says Casablanca is a boring industrial city with nothing to see except for a huge mosque. I will skip the city. A taxi takes me to the hostel. It’s nice, but a family lives there with a noisy little child, and they’re also celebrating a birthday. I go out to eat with a New Yorker who has worked for Kamala Harris. Also at the hostel is a carpenter and life artist from London. A crazy guy who rides his bike through Morocco and smokes way too much hashish. But the three of us have a fun evening.

I’m very interested in old, ancient cities; that’s why I booked a tour to Volubilis. A Roman city that once had 20,000 inhabitants. One absurdity about the tours is that you always stop at some places for 5 minutes for an Instagram photo. Without further explanation. The driver also gets flashed. Anyway, the city is great and very interesting. Many mosaics, the pixel art of antiquity, featuring well-known legends of Hercules and other heroes and gods. Baths, columns, oil presses, thermal baths, everything is there. Unfortunately, we were only given 1.5 hours. After that, we go to another photo stop and then on to the city of Meknes, one of the four royal cities. There we have 3 hours to explore the city. The time could have been better allocated. It's okay, not so impressive. There’s a medina, a city wall, and the mausoleum of Moulay Ismail to see. I like Arab architecture; it’s very mathematical. Lots of geometric shapes, a lot of symmetry and periodicity. In the evening in Fes, I walked a bit through the medina, the largest car-free medina in the world.

It's Monday. Today, the plan is to explore Fes. At 10 AM, I meet Youseff for tea. He is a teacher of Islam and really a nice person; I get some tips from him. I start at Bab Boujloud and head through the medina along a main road towards the east. On the way, there’s a madrasa, a mausoleum of Moulay Idriss II, and the mosque and university of Karaouine. Everyone has their own definition of a university. All these buildings cannot be entered by non-Muslims. I visit a carpentry museum where all kinds of wooden items are displayed: wall decorations, boxes, furniture, doors, and so on. Lunch is in a very busy side street, a recommendation from Youseff. There’s bean soup with olive oil. What hangs around at the butchers is borderline. After that, I go to the famous tanneries of Fes. But I choose not to visit them after all. It stinks, the work is dangerous, and I don’t need to see dead animal hides. Moreover, the people there are annoying. 'Hello, where are you from?', 'Hashish?', 'Come to my shop.' over and over again. The medina is very confusing, and of course, I get lost on the way back. Then someone constantly shows up claiming the street is closed just to show the allegedly right path for money. As is the case wherever there are many tourists, the character of the people tends to be worse. In the evening, I go to a viewpoint by the old city wall where you have a very good view of the old town. I’m moving to a new hostel with a very nice common area.